


Math, Myth and Magic.

by Sealie



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Thor (2011), Traders (TV 1995)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealie/pseuds/Sealie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A visitor finds his way to Atlantis</p>
            </blockquote>





	Math, Myth and Magic.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluespirit/gifts).



> Rating: Gen  
> Word count: ~1, 200  
> Warning: none  
> Advisory: none  
> Spoilers: none  
> Beta: Springwoof gave it a quick looksee  
> Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Traders and a guest star

**Math, Myth and Magic**   
by Sealie

Grant’s remit on Atlantis was to study things that were interesting. And that was just the best job in the Universe.

One of the things that interested him was the Lorentzian bridge that allowed the passage of matter on an intra and inter universe level. The stargates were sort of interesting but they were just means to an end. Everyone seemed to forget about the bit in between and it was all maths. Maths described it. Maths painted the picture that illustrated worlds.

Grant couldn’t talk to Atlantis like Flyboy, but he could talk to her in his own Mathy way.

Atlantis liked him.

When he hooked up his Python supercomputers to the mainframe whole new worlds opened.

Literally.

The man curled up on the floor of his laboratory was coated in a thick layer of rainbow tinted ice. Grant crouched down and carefully touched the icicle trailing off the man’s black, slicked back hair. It tinkled and fell away.

“Oh. Keep still,” Grant instructed his unconscious visitor. “I think that this is going to come off really easily.”

Like dabbling in the innards of a delicate hardrive, Grant stroked his fingers over the man’s high forehead brushing off the delicate ice crystals. Belatedly, he snagged a glass and deposited a palmful to melt in the bottom of the pot.

As he brushed fine frost off the man’s eyelashes, his eyes flicked open.

“Hello,” Grant said to that sharp, green gaze. “I’m Grant. Who are you?”

The forest green eyes watched, but he didn’t speak.

“You’re cold probably,” Grant mused. “Let’s get the rest of this ice off you. It’s not really ice. But it’s a lot like ice. Ice is frozen water; that is, two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen forming a molecule. When subjected to cold temperatures, the molecules arrange themselves in a lattice structure, which can support mass… Oh, huh.” Grant held his hand up and blew on the not-ice. “String.” It disappeared into the warp and weft of the universe. He laughed at the utter pleasure of holding an impossible cosmic string in the palm of his hand. Rodney was going to be so disappointed that he had missed this.

Grant brushed the last piece of ice off the man’s pointed chin. The string-ice was sublimating off his high collared tunic. The patterns on his vest were intricate knots and weaves of interlocking circles and chasing tails. His armour was inscribed with Celtic clockwork. Mathematical.

“There you go.” Grant settled back on his heels.

“Where is this place?”

“You can talk.” Grant smiled. “My name’s Grant. What’s yours?”

The man sat up smoothly, hands braced behind him. Slowly, he scanned Grant’s laboratory. Grant preened; he was proud of his lab.

“Midgard? But this--” He rose and headed straight over to a wall. The mercury metallic drizzle pattern glowed in welcome. The visitor turned to look back at Grant. “Alteran?”

Grant nodded vigorously. “Would you like some chocolate, Mr. ?”

“Loki. Yes, I will have chocolate.”

“Good.” Grant rubbed his hands together, already heading over to his stash in the top drawer under his main work bench. “I have Green & Blacks. My favourite is ginger. I thought that I would prefer rum and raisin. The cherry is very good.” Grant presented his visitor with the three bars, fanning them out before him like a cards.

Delicately, Mr. Loki selected the bitter-sweet dark chocolate and cherry.

“Good choice, Mr. Loki.”

“Just Loki.”

“So are you a Norse God?” Grant asked companionably as he popped a square of chocolate and ginger into his mouth. “You look like a Norse God. I like the armour.”

“You’ve heard of me?” Loki cocked his head to the side.

“God of Mischief. Beloved brother and archenemy of Thor.”

Loki snorted.

“Or maybe not.” Grant grabbed a data tablet and dib-dib dabbled across the smooth screen. He pulled up his Marvel comics folder on the mainframe. He presented Loki with the image of the cover of Loki Legends #13.

“What is this?”

“The data tablet or the comic book cover?”

Loki stared down at him.

“It’s a story about you. You save the Universe, by destroying it. It was cool. In all senses of the word. It was Ragnarok, lots of snow and ice. That’s just the comic books.” Grant shuffled up and leaned over the pad selecting Dr. Chase’s myth and legends folder on the anthropology database. “Ignore the folder about the BEMs, they’re a different kind of Asgardian. I’m guessing we’ve got a parallel universe thing going on here.”

“My brother would be enchanted to know that you still create tales of the Asgard.” Loki put the data tablet out of Grant’s reach. “How did you draw me from the shattered Bifröst?”

“Is that the string-ice?” Grant bent down and picked up his now empty tumbler. He held it up against his eye and looked out of it like a telescope.

“You have the kenning of it. But how did you grab me from the sparse emptiness of an unweaved tapestry.”

“I was looking at a defunct ZPM.” Grant pointed at it, lying on the bench, hooked up to one of Atlantis’ holographic matrix screens. “There was an erg of energy. I was trying to create a virtual image of its internal structure and the patterns were so… pretty. It got me thinking about non-linearity in Quantum theory and then that if the density matrix of spacetime were actually density matrices, fundamentally, that meant that there was only one matrix for all universes. We were everywhere and everywhen. And then you appeared. But if that was true, you would have always been here. Perhaps you have been? But now I’m thinking linearly again. But for a moment the universes unfurled before me and the ZPM is out of energy. Hee.”

“Heh,” Loki threw his head back and laughed. “I was falling, when I realised that I shouldn’t be falling because there was nothing to fall through. But that could not be, because I was falling.”

“Hmm, we have a conundrum of coincidences. They happen a lot around here.” He patted the ZPM. The ZPM was a conundrum of its very own.

“You’re an interesting man, Grant Jansky son of Kay. You saw a wide, wide net and you cast it out and hauled it in. I owe you a debt.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary. I was glad I could help. It must have been lonely there, you were all alone.” Grant popped another chunk of chocolate in his mouth. “You can stay here if you like? I can introduce you to Flyboy?”

“Flyboy. He can fly?”

“With a plane. Not on his own.” Grant blinked. “He’d like that.”

“After you.” Loki gestured grandiosely at the door.

“They’re going to overreact, though,” Grant said warningly. “They’re going to want you to go to the infirmary and check you out. And the Marines will have their guns and be pointing. Flyboy won’t let them shoot. Just don’t jump up and down or anything like that.”

“I will restrain myself, for now.” Loki swept out of the room, cape swirling around his ankles.

“Rodney’s going to think you’re wonderful,” Grant chased after him. “He’s probably going to yell, he likes to yell. He’ll definitely yell when we tell him about the Bifröst cosmic strings and inter universe travel.”

 

~*~

“The Avengers are real!”

 _Fin_


End file.
